


walk like you're a god

by asleepygay



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, for most of the fic anyway, ronan and adam are hot gossip thats p much it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 16:56:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13345503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asleepygay/pseuds/asleepygay
Summary: People are staring. Adam can see them, has always been able to see them, but he doesn’t know what to make of them on this particular morning.Today, they stare because he kissed Ronan Lynch.





	walk like you're a god

**Author's Note:**

> this was finished recently but started a million years ago so I'm calling it around the time of bllb? also, based on and named after the line "they know you walk like you're a god, they can't believe I made you weak" from halsey's song strange love because I'm a mess and it's apparently 2015 still.
> 
> one quick note for anyone reading my kindergarten teacher au, I'm not abandoning it. tbh, winter always kicks my ass and I wasn't feeling it for a while, an I'm currently figuring out a cross-country move so. it's not my priority right now. I appreciate that nobody has harassed me about the delay, and especially appreciate those of you who commented w support! i am sorry that that story took a hit, and I'm not gonna promise a return date this time, but as of right now there will still be one. 
> 
> thanks a bunch for the patience xx
> 
> edit 2/1/18: fucking when u find a typo in your favorite line am i fucking right :///// also shameless self promotion, i just got a tumblr (parkerptrs) so head over that way and chat w me about fic if you want to

People are staring. Adam can see them, has always been able to see them, but he doesn’t know what to make of them on this particular morning. Usually when people stare, Adam very much does know what to make of it. Usually he walks past them as though they aren’t there, pretends he doesn’t feel their eyes on him. Pretends that whatever loose thread or visible bruise that has caught their gazes doesn’t burn like their eyes are matches striking his phosphorous flaws. Today, though, there is no burning flaw or its matching shame. Today, they stare because he kissed Ronan Lynch.

It starts like this:

Adam and Ronan begin as strangers turned associates turned friends turned partners-in-literal-crime. Following all those turns and the one or two instances of literal crime, those and several other barriers begin to crumble. Glances get longer, more open, time spent alone together becomes increasingly more frequent and increasingly less necessary. “Gansey needs us,” becomes “let’s work together to fix Cabeswater,” becomes “want to spend the night?”. There are some steps in between those, probably, and they don’t exactly happen in that order, maybe. Somewhere after the steady exponential growth of their comfort around each other, there is a rainy day in March, in the gray in-between time that clogs the transition from winter to spring. Fickle, finicky March pulls a damp, chilly day from one that was sunny and dry, trapping the four friends corporeal enough to hike inside a forest that hadn’t been nearly so unwelcoming when they arrived.

A miserable trudge back to Gansey’s car and a cold, cramped car ride back to Monmouth sap at the strength in Adam’s bones. It’s possible that this is a contributing factor to the events to come. Blue requests to be driven home for a much needed warm shower, so she and Gansey return to the Pig after a brief meeting upstairs to plan a second attempt at today’s hike, to be held at a later date. Adam also needs to return to his room and shower, but, even though it’s nearby, he doesn’t go with Blue and Gansey. Instead, Ronan picks up his keys and glances at Adam, an offer to drive him home for no reason at all. This is becoming increasingly more common.

Adam can swear he sees a flash of Noah’s knowing expression on their way out, which unfortunately is also becoming increasingly more common.

When they get to St. Agnes church, Ronan follows Adam up to his rented room, wordlessly inviting himself into Adam’s life for no pressing reason, the second time he has done so today. Standing in his poorly lit apartment, most of its one room taken up by Ronan’s absurdly expansive presence, Adam finds himself less interested in the shower he had craved ten minutes prior. Instead, he longs to stay beside Ronan, to sit and see where the night will go. It isn’t necessarily that nights spent with Ronan typically go anywhere, but sometimes it feels like they go everywhere. Tonight is one of those nights. The room is all deep shadows and flat patches of golden light, the result of only one cheap lamp in the room and no natural light filtering in through the storm outside. It turns his room into something surreal, a place for questions unspoken but answered with surety. Ronan probably isn’t helping that perception, being the unspoken but sure person that he is.

Adam suddenly feels the need to say something, to pop the bubble of silence that is expanding to press against his chest, but he can’t trust himself not to say something like _the storm reminds me of you_ or _you look good here_. Ronan values honesty and Adam values Ronan, so he decides that if he can’t tell the truth he won’t say anything at all. Somehow small talk feels a lot like lying right now.

It is probably this train of thought, fueled by the surreal room and the bone-deep tiredness that feels much less sleep related in this moment, that causes Adam to lean forward. He touches his fingertips softly to Ronan’s chest, nudges his nose alongside Ronan’s, and tilts his head up so their lips can meet. The contact is brief, but it’s everything. Confessions related to dozens of half-halted actions in the past few weeks pressed to Ronan’s mouth, no words necessary. A breath, deep and stabilizing, and then he returns, admitting to every time he sat too close to Ronan or stared too long. Ronan’s own admissions are made by his lips sliding against Adam’s, by his hands gripping Adam’s hips.

They pull back, foreheads still touching, rain washing down the window and sealing them away from the world.

“So this weather sucks, huh?” Ronan says, half offering an out, _things can be normal if you change your mind_ , half joking, _like we could possibly need small talk now_.

Adam says, “I like the storm.” Two admissions in one.

It progresses like this:

They tell Gansey and Blue and Noah basically right away, seeing no reason to hide it from them. A party is debated by the newly informed and protested by the newly involved, but they get gelato anyway and Noah insists it’s in celebration. So for almost a month, lips touch and tongues meet and fingers grasp and tighten in shirts, hair, ties. Touches are increasingly more casual, conversations about their relationship get increasingly louder. No one is being all that public, but Aglionby is a place that is both bored and wealthy in resources, and it’s hard to keep such a place in the dark for long.

When Adam Parrish walks into school one day with a hickey almost hidden by his shirt collar, Aglionby rumbles. In the eyes of Aglionby, Adam Parrish is untouchable; top of the class, right hand of Golden Boy Gansey, unusually attractive and quiet like he could speak and rule a room but simply didn’t care to.

When Ronan Lynch walks into school hardly a week later with several hickeys easily visible, Aglionby roars. In the eyes of Aglionby, Ronan Lynch is _untouchable_ ; always mysteriously absent but still mysteriously enrolled, lapdog of Golden Boy Gansey but attack dog to everyone else, violently attractive, sharp and abrasive like he could slice a man to bits.

_Who put their teeth to Ronan Lynch?_

To do so felt both redundant and suicidal, but bored, resourceful Aglionby was making its way towards the light.

“They all want to know,” Gansey says one afternoon as they walk towards the cafeteria. Adam doesn’t really need any clarification to know what Gansey is talking about. He slips his hands into is pocket to keep them from self-consciously reaching towards his neck and collarbone. No marks are visible today - Adam has to look presentable at work - but this does not mean that there are no marks.

“Has anyone said anything to you?” Adam feels like it would be a miracle if none of Aglionby’s nosy and self-important student body had conferred with their shining peer leader about his odd counterparts.

Gansey confirms Adam’s suspicions with a polite noise of disbelief. “No, actually. On a separate note, I won the lottery, and I was struck by lightning twice just last period.”

“Wow, that’s amazing. I can’t believe you lived,” Adam says, all dry sarcasm.

Another one of Gansey’s dinner party sounds, this one amused, and he responds, “That tone was so very Ronan. He’s rubbing off on you.”

Adam smiles, small but open, and his ears are red but his eyes are glittering. “That was an unfortunate choice of words.”

Gansey groans and wrinkles his nose. Adam laughs. Aglionby watches.

The stares are more pronounced the next day, and students are appearing to grow bolder. Adam walks down the hall to first period and is caught somewhat off guard by the conversations he passes.

“- you see Lynch? His neck -”

“- asked Dick Gansey but -”

“- talking yesterday before lunch, do you think -”

“- hear? Parrish said -”

“So they _are_ -”

Adam walks by as he normally does, pretends that he doesn’t hear it. He hopes his ears aren’t turning red in response to their suggestive speculation and tries to stop his brain from filling in their blanks. Scenes flash through his mind, lips, skin, sweat. The sound of Ronan gasping, the electricity in every new touch. The night before, and the way it had included all of those things. He keeps his face blank and makes his way to the classroom in which he has first period history. Gansey and Ronan have yet to meet up with him, though he knows they’re at school by the gossip Ronan’s appearance inspired, so he expects the student rapidly approaching him to be one of them. It isn’t. In his peripheral vision, Adam sees a school sweater headed towards him at a confident pace, but it’s the wrong confidence. It isn’t Gansey’s comfortable power, nor Ronan’s aggressive and cautionary swagger, but something false that’s bred by foolish arrogance. A hand claps him on the shoulder in a good-natured, brotherly kind of way that doesn’t match any of the non-Gansey-or-Ronan relationships he has at Aglionby. So, of course, it’s Tad Carruthers who speaks by his side with all the surety of a party crasher who doesn’t know he wasn’t invited.

“Hey, Adam! What’s up, man?”

Adam raises an eyebrow but doesn’t speak. This is okay, as Tad isn’t the kind of person who needs two active participants to have a boisterous conversation.

Without much pause, Tad continues, “Headed to history? Same. I mean, you know that, we’ve shared the class for, like, how long? A while. Man, you’re always so fuckin’ focused. You and Lynch.”

Adam’s brow raises steadily higher at Tad’s shoddy attempt at sleuthing. He was already suspicious of Tad’s rambling and clumsy flattery, but the obvious weight placed on “ _you and Lynch_ ,” has Adam struggling to keep his expression in check. Not to mention how lazy the attempt is - Ronan is never focused in history. It’s honestly a miracle that he’s even here. He isn’t sure if he’s angry or amused, but he thinks it’s some blurry combination of the two.

Tad keeps speaking, seemingly under the impression that he is being discreet, “Haven’t seen him yet today, have you?”

It’s possible that he’s trying to gain some secret off Adam’s expression at the mention of Ronan, but it's very busy looking scornful and disbelieving. Adam is truly astonished that Tad has yet to realize how clumsy and abrasive he’s being, but then that always has been his way. He is waiting for Tad to lump together his ignorance and his entitlement and just ask Adam if he put those marks on Ronan’s neck, but class is going to start soon and Adam isn’t going to be late for Tad Carruthers, and he isn’t going to tell him anything anyway.

He just says, “Nope. See you in class,” then brushes past Tad and speeds up.

“Parrish!” Tad is left standing where Adam left him, but Adam doesn’t owe him any answers so he doesn’t turn around. He walks into class and sees Gansey and Ronan in their usual seats, both of them brightening at his entrance in their own subtle ways. They have probably been waiting for him, and the thought warms him where he had felt colder after his walk across a gossipy campus.

“Parrish,” Ronan says, offhand, “We thought you bailed for bigger and better things.”

“Well, Lynch, since you mentioned it. I was kept by our good friend Tad Carruthers.” Adam matches his tone, an actor in the play that is the three of them at school. Ronan’s sharp brow quirks in an even sharper movement. “He just wanted to know if I’d seen you yet today.” He glances at Ronan’s neck with some significance, reigning in his personal satisfaction.

Understanding lights Ronan’s gaze. “Ah, sure. And what did you say?”

“Me? Not a thing.” Adam finally lets some of his amusement show, flirtatious instead of angry in response to Ronan’s mere presence. Smirking slightly, he says, “I don’t kiss and tell, Ronan. People just talk.”

Ronan’s eyes flick up, looking behind Adam, but they’re back on his face in a heartbeat, cautious yet determined. “Give them something to talk about then.”

Adam is wary for all of one second, and then theyre kissing. It’s chaste, short, but the warm feeling from before spreads through his body like molasses. The kiss is nothing like the night before and the resulting scandal but the implications, the signature Adam may as well be writing on Ronan Lynch, sucks the air out of the room. Every student goes silent, stays silent as Ronan pulls back, all of them suddenly wide awake despite the hour. The teacher comes in and starts shuffling papers on his desk and writing on the board, forcing the students to remain silent for class.

Ronan smiles, a dry quirk of his razor lips, but his eyes search Adam’s face for disapproval or unhappiness.

After class is going to be a nightmare. His classmates have been trapped by the beginning of class, their thirst for scandal fueled by what they just saw but forced to sit on it for the next fifty minutes. Surely several of them have texted their friends, who have likely texted their friends and so on, but for now the academic focus that Aglionby demands of its students will subdue the worst of it. When class ends, the floodgates around the last week of whispers will open and no one can predict what kind of tide the kiss will cause. Adam wants to do it again. He grins at Ronan, wide and a little bit of a challenge, and turns to sit when he sees relief and satisfaction replace Ronan’s doubt. Out of the corner of his eye, Adam sees Gansey shake his head, a small smile poorly contained.

Class begins. Most of the students are still staring at Adam and Ronan, and the teacher seems marginally confused by the exaggerated lack of focus. Adam smiles and begins to take notes.

He can picture how they’ll all look at him, can almost hear what they’ll say. They will get bored of Adam and Ronan soon enough, but until then they will speculate scandals, judge or congratulate Adam or Ronan or both.  Maybe they will wonder how Adam trained a snake. Maybe they will wonder what the King thinks. For once, Adam doesn’t care at all.

It ends like this:

Class ends. People stare. _Everyone_ stares. It seems that in the time it took to trudge through one high school class period, the entire student body has been made aware of the kiss, and in turn, of every kiss. So he is slightly at a loss, unsure of how exactly to proceed. The entire school hums, and Adam and Ronan walk down the hall, side by side, Adam’s name smudged on Ronan’s neck in purples and reds. They can see every pair of eyes that lingers on the marks, that tracks their bumping shoulders. Maybe Ronan’s reputation will keep their peers at bay, or maybe Gansey’s will, and maybe some students will actually respect their privacy. Maybe some will approach them, and Adam is unsure what they will do, say, ask. Certainly there isn’t a student on campus, or at least in this hallway, who doesn’t want to know. They stare and he doesn’t know what they think of this thing, this one secret he kept out of pride and happiness, and ultimately he finds that he’s strangely unaffected by it. With an unprecedented lack of shame, he ignores the murmurs that follow him, turns to Ronan and listens to Gansey’s historic ramblings, and finally he can no longer feel the eyes.


End file.
